Selected Letters of William Styron (6 page)

Whenever I get a chance I’m going to write to Mr. Fleet and thank him for his kind words. I was astounded at the impressive array of judges who liked the story, and until I read Mr. Fleet’s letter I had no idea what competition I was up against. I also enjoyed Eliza’s letter, and please tell her I will write at length when I find time.

My application for O.C. has not gone through as yet, and I am still in a state of confusion.
^r
This company is due to ship out for California (dread word!) sometime around the 23
^rd
of this month, and I fully expect to ship out with everyone else, unless a miracle happens. I’m sure that, with a little prodding, the application would go through and be accepted (since I passed the physical), but at present it is lying dormant somewhere in the sergeant-major’s office—while the hour of departure fast approaches! I
don’t mind going to the West Coast and points beyond if I am definitely out of O.C., but I fear that all is lost if I get to San Diego without having had any action taken on the application while I was here at Lejeune. If you have any friends who are friends of Forrestal or any of the other Navy-Marine Corps gods, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to give them the word, as I am beginning to think that I have been kicked around enough.
^s

If we are all not restricted to the base this week-end, I will try my very best to get up to see you. It may be the last time for quite awhile, so I will try and get a pass. If I do get off, I’ll wire you before-hand, giving time of arrival, etc.

Well, I had better close now. Again, I appreciate the fine letter; and that “pardnership of Styron + Styron” is okay with me! Please write soon, and love to all.

Your son,

Bill

P.S. You should have seen me throwing TNT grenades today. Quite a thrill!

T
O
W
ILLIAM
B
LACKBURN

May 8, 1945 Quantico, Virginia

Dear Professor Blackburn,

I got your note last Saturday, and was both surprised and pleased to learn that my story had been received so favorably by the judges of the Story contest. Since I was home last weekend, and saw the letter which you had written to my father, I was still more surprised to learn that the story stood among the top ten or so.
^t

As you might have noticed from my address, I am at Quantico now, taking a “refresher course” which will ostensibly prepare me for the O.C.S. So far it has proved to be nothing much more than a relief from the atrocities of New River, since the program here is designed more to treat us like gentlemen and future officers, and less like recruits. I am scheduled to enter O.C.S. in about two weeks, and from then on out I can only keep my fingers crossed, and hope I make it.

I have an idea for another story germinating, but I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to write it down. I also see more and more every day which might go toward that novel, and I hope to come back to Duke after the war and complete it.

Whenever I finish writing the story I have in mind I’ll send it to you for criticism, approval, and disposition. Thanks again for all the help you’ve given me, and I hope to see you sometime before very long—with bars, I hope.

Sincerely,

Bill Styron

Styron was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in July 1945. Following the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. After commanding a guard platoon on Hart’s Island in Long Island Sound, Styron was discharged in December and he returned to Duke in March 1946
.

T
O
W
ILLIAM
C. S
TYRON
, S
R
.

March 8, 1946 Duke University

Dear Pop,

I just now went down and got the money order, which I appreciate very much. I will attempt to keep track of all my expenditures. For two days I was flat broke, but borrowed a few dollars from a friend of mine, Ben Williamson, who is a medical student here.

My trunk just got here, too. They held it for some time—why, I don’t
know—down in Durham. So all last week I slept on a bare mattress (which I’ve done many times before) and used my overcoat for a blanket. I presume that I have a roommate—most of his clothes are on an empty bed and the man at the rooming office told me I had a roommate—but he certainly hasn’t showed up yet.

I spent my first night here with Prof. Blackburn, and the next day he helped me make out my course card. He advised me to take the minimum number of subjects, so that I may have time to write on my novel. He’s fully expecting me to write one, it seems; and although I want to—and probably will—I don’t see
now
one in the offing. However I’m going to start pitching in and see if I can’t finish one in six or eight months.

I’m taking Russian history, Psychology, Geology, and—of course—Composition under Prof. Blackburn.
^u
The Russian course and Psychology both look very interesting, and the Geology—for a science—doesn’t look too hard.

Duke is the same old Duke, full of vacuous looking Long Island
nouveaux riches
, and odd-looking persons, dressed exquisitely in the latest in male + female fashions, who, I surmise, are here because they couldn’t get into Princeton or Vassar. It’s a shame, I think, that the current situation prevents me from going to Columbia or U.N.C., but I don’t suppose it will be too bad here.

I find that I only know two or three people here—mostly medical students whom I knew at Davidson—but, if my present judgment is correct, I don’t care to know too many of these noisy oafs.

There are three things which I wish you would try and find for me. First, a desk lamp. Duke, naturally, doesn’t provide a study lamp. Also a record player and typewriter. I don’t necessarily need a typewriter (for I can’t type) but I do need the lamp. If you can also find a second-hand record player combination, it would be fine, for I really feel the need of good music at times.

Write me a letter. Take care of yourself, and give my best to Eliza and Helen.

Your son,

WCS jr

T
O
W
ILLIAM
C. S
TYRON
, S
R
.

May 6, 1946 Duke University

Dear Pop,

I am enclosing a notice from the Dean’s Office which was sent to all students in reference to entrance here next Fall. As you can see, it will be necessary to pay the $25 fee—which will be refunded to veterans—or else one loses all right to a reservation.

Please send me a check for that amount before May 10. Although it’s true I might get into Carolina, I still don’t think I’d better take any chances, do you?
^v
Professor Blackburn, anyway, has suggested that I sweat it out here at Duke for another semester—since that’s all I’ll have to go. He said that the very fact that I dislike Duke might be a greater incentive toward my finishing the “novel,” since if I went over to Carolina the atmosphere might be too distracting. I think perhaps he’s right.

I got a letter from Crown Publishers today, which is headed by Hiram Haydn, ex-professor of English at W.C.U.N.C. Blackburn wrote him about my projected book, and Mr. Haydn wrote in return that he’d be glad to read it when I finished it. So, with Rinehart, that makes two publishing houses that I know will at least give the ms. consideration.
^w

I’m not progressing too fast on the ms., but I don’t mind since I think it’s best to take my time. It’ll probably take a year or more, including this summer.

I received the $65 and the clippings, both of which I appreciate very much.

Give my best to Eliza and Helen.

Your son,

Bill jr.

T
O
W
ILLIAM
C. S
TYRON
, S
R
.

June 10, 1946 Duke University

Dear Pop,

I received your letter and telegram, both of which I enjoyed very much. In regard to your encouraging telegram, I can only say that I don’t know how “gigantic” a stature I can ever realize, but I hope I will always have the assiduousness and will-power to learn, and to work toward doing the very best I can. As each day goes by I acquire more and more introspection into my own make-up, and I know that I have many faults and weaknesses—some of them very bad—but I hope to fight toward conquering these weak spots and foibles to the best of my ability. It’s a hard job, but I can succeed.

I have two more exams, and then I leave for New York; but I’ll be back on the 26
^th
or 27
^th
. It will certainly be a pleasure to see Aunt Edith again, won’t it? It’s really been a long time …

I don’t know what I’m going to do for the remainder of the summer—outside of going to Middlebury—but if I stay at home I fully expect to establish for myself a definite schedule for reading and writing. By establishing such a schedule I’ll go at least part of the way toward conquering my chief fault—
laziness
.

I wish you would send me $25 for the trip before this Friday P.M., as I may need some extra money. I think I’ll have enough money anyway, but I would like to have $25 “just in case.” In case I don’t use it, I’ll return it. I’ll see you soon. Give my best to everyone.

Your son,

Bill jr.

T
O
W
ILLIAM
C. S
TYRON
, S
R
.

October 21, 1946 Duke University

Dear Pop,

It’ll be necessary to send in with my application for the Rhodes Scholarship State committee (I passed the local board) (a) a
statement
certified by you before a notary public that I was born on June 11, 1925, and (b) the names of
two
citizens who can attest to my character, sobriety, virtue, and
all that sort of thing. I don’t have to have the statements, but merely the
names
of two reputable and fairly prominent people who will be
willing
to write a short panegyric if called upon by the Committee. However, I have to have the application in by November 2
^nd
, so please send these to me as soon as possible. My chances are mighty slim in getting anything out on this deal, but I don’t suppose it’ll hurt to try.
^x

I’ve still got some money left from the check you sent me, but not much. My check from the V.A. will undoubtedly not get here until the first of next month, food still costs $1.50 a day, and Bobbie is coming down on Nov. 2 for the homecoming game. Please send me $15 with the letter, as I fear I shall be in desperate straits before the end of the month. At that, I’ll probably have to ask for more if my Veterans’ check doesn’t come before Bobbie gets here.
^y

I’m fed up, disgusted, and totally out of sorts with Duke University and formal education in general, for that matter, and I hardly see why I’m taking a crack at this Rhodes scholarship when I’m such an execrable student. Only the fact that this is my last semester keeps me from packing up and leaving.

I’ve come to the stage when I know what I want to do with my future. I want to write, and that’s all, and I need no study of such quaint American writers as Cotton Mather or Philip Freneau—both of whom we are studying in American Lit—to increase my perception or outlook on literature and life. For a person whose sole burning ambition is to write—like myself—college is useless beyond the Sophomore year. By that time he knows that further
wisdom
comes from reading men like Plato + Montaigne—not Cotton Mather—and from getting out in the world and
living
. All of the rest of the scholarship in English literature is for pallid, prim and vapid young men who will end up teaching and devoting 30 years of their sterile lives in investigating some miserably obscure facet of the life of a minor Renaissance poet. Sure, scholarship is necessary, but it’s
not for me. I’m going to write, and I’ll spend the rest of my days on a cattle-boat or jerking sodas before I’ll teach.

So far, though, I’m making good grades and I hope to get out of here
soon
.

Give my best to everybody,

Your son,

Bill jr

T
O
R
OBERT
P
ENN
W
ARREN
^z

December 11, 1946 Duke University

Dear Mr. Warren,

Dr. William Blackburn, who teaches Creative writing here at Duke University, suggested that I write you in regard to the possibility of my studying writing under you at Minnesota after I graduate in January. Rather than burden you with any manuscripts now, I would like to know first if you would care to read any of my stories, and if you regarded them with favor, if there is any chance of taking your course at Minnesota.

In 1944, I won an Honorable Mention in
Story’s
college contest, and two of my stories were included in
One and Twenty
, the Duke anthology of student prose and verse. Mr. Peter Taylor came over from W.C.U.N.C. in Greensboro, sitting as guest critic in our class, and completely demolished one of my latest efforts, but remarked that the story was well above the college level.

I would be glad to send you some of my manuscripts, if you are considering admitting new students to your class.

Very Truly Yours,

William C. Styron, Jr.

Styron graduated from Duke in early 1947
.

T
O
W
ILLIAM
C. S
TYRON
, S
R
.

March 2, 1947 Duke University

Dear Pop,

Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
^A
Therefore, taking a sudden and rather desperate inspiration from Ecclesiastes, and from mine own turbulent mind which for quite some time has been rebelling against the academic cloister—such as one may call a cloister at Duke—I have decided to throw it all up and go elsewhere for my wisdom. In other words—I should be blunt—I’m leaving Duke as soon as I settle my affairs.